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Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Local Filmmakers Choose Fort Thomas as Location of New Movie

Cast and crew of Sovereign Entertainment's Devil's Point at Louisville Fright Film Fest

by Colin Moore

If you’re around Fort Thomas over a weekend this spring
don’t be surprised if it feels like Hollywood has come to town. Local
filmmakers William Chaffin and Chris Wesley have gained permission to film in
Fort Thomas and plan to start filming their next feature “The Edge of
Indolence” over weekends from April 21st to the end of June.

William and Chris have been making movies together for
almost fifteen years. Their production company, Sovereign Entertainment, has made
multiple feature films and short films in the Northern Kentucky/ Cincinnati
area. They pride themselves on spending a lot of time and energy on the quality
of their storytelling. Their aim is to not to break in to Hollywood, but to make
“Mainstream quality movies with good
storytelling and bring them into the popular realm: mainstream quality in an
independent world.”

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Chris wrote “The Edge
of Indolence” and William will direct. The action/ comedy film tells the story of a pair
of friends who reconnect in their early twenties after a few years apart. They
come into possession of a suitcase and, although they don’t know what is
inside, people start coming after them for it in the small town of Indolence,
Ohio.

“The town seems dull
and boring on the surface, that’s what the name Indolence means, but there’s a
lot happening under the surface. There’s a mob element in the town and a lot of
quirky and unique characters. It’s going to be a fun, action orientated movie”

William’s fiancé lives in Fort Thomas and he plans to move
to the city in April. While visiting her he saw a lot of elements of the city
that he though would work in the film. “It’s
one of the hazards of being a filmmaker, when you’re driving around you’re also
looking at things thinking, “Ooh, I could film that!”” When William read
Chris’ script he immediately pictured “tree
lined streets, a lot of small businesses and homes with different styles and
different colors. Not a cookie cutter modern suburb. There had to be a
character and a sense of history to the town, so that it could have the layers
needed for the plot, the aesthetic and visual aspect had to reflect that.”

He found everything he needed in Fort Thomas.

The talent on the movie will also be home grown, both in
front of and behind the camera. William and Chris contact local talent agencies,
which advertise auditions to local actors. They also offer auditions to local
students in drama programs at NKU, UC and Miami Ohio “In this case a lot of the characters in “The Edge of Indolence” are
college aged, so that works quite well for this.” They also recruit for
behind the scenes roles through film classes at the same colleges and local
societies like the Southern Ohio Filmmakers Association. “The students get to bounce around, to run camera, set up sound, set up
lights, so they get a lot of experience. For key crew like cinematographer, we
generally use someone with more experience, but for grips and camera operators,
college students are great.” As a small business most of the cast and crew
aren’t paid in advance but receive an agreed share of profits once the movie
has been released.

Sovereign Entertainment has a specific business plan, self-distributing
their movies through various streaming services such as Amazon Prime. William
explains:

“Twenty years ago a
lot of people started off making movies independently and then got their move
into Hollywood. Guys like Christopher Nolan, Kevin Smith or Robert Rodriguez.
Back then the challenge was that equipment was much more expensive and harder
to access but once you’d made a movie it was easier to get distribution. Now
it’s reversed, it’s much easier to make something, with much more high quality
equipment readily available but it’s become more difficult to get
distribution.”

By self-distributing William and Chris are effectively
cutting out the middle man, instead of going through a distributor who takes a
cut of the proceeds, they do a deal directly with Amazon, for example, and
split the revenue with them. “It means
more money in our pocket overall. The movie itself may not make as much but it
allows us to keep a bigger share of what it makes”. It also makes their films instantly available worldwide. Their last film "Otaku Vampires" is currently getting positive reviews as far afield as Germany and Japan. Through Mike Catchman,
a former Hollywood executive who has worked at companies like Lions Gate, they
have also made more traditional connections in movie making and have an open
invitation from Red Box to submit future projects.

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One of their previous movies, a comedy/ horror “Otaku
Vampires”, is currently available on Amazon Prime and “Devil’s Point”, a supernatural
thriller, should be available soon. When they finish a movie, it’s submitted to
Amazon and an aggregator checks that it’s of sufficient quality to be streamed.
Once it’s been approved, and William and Chris are ready, it’s made available
to the movie watching public online.

Both William and Chris have full time jobs and make their
movies on evenings and weekends.Their
ultimate aim is to turn their small production business into their full time
job and make more movies than the two a year they currently manage. So far
after the proceeds of a movie are realised they pay everyone who worked on the
movie and the rest of the money goes towards funding the next movie.

Despite the fact that they hope to wrap filming in June,
don’t be surprised if it’s a while before you see the final edit of “The Edge
of Indolence”. Making a film is a long process: William and Chris will spend
the rest of the year editing and aim to finish “within a year.” Their current hope is to premiere the film locally
next spring, enter it into a couple of film festivals and then distribute
online. Between writing, pre-production, location scouting, filming and editing
the whole process will have taken approximately two years.